You'll Stay With Me? Until The Very End
by WerewolvesOfLondonAgain
Summary: It might not have worked out between either of them in the end. But she had been his first love, and he had been hers, and you don't just walk away from that in a war. Ron/Lavender friendship, moments before her death. R&R, first ever fic!


_** bonjouur,**_

_** Im not really sure if Ron and Lavender ever loved each other, but i like to think they did, in a sweet young way. **_

_**It's my first everr fic, so enjoy.**_

_**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER**_

_May 2__nd, __1998._

_ 11pm._

Ron Weasley knows he should be with his family right now, mourning, but he can't help it, and this is one last thing he needs to do. Lavender Brown was important to him too. And it might not have worked out, but they were still friends. They still are.

Friends are there for one another, if that's one thing he's learnt from Harry and Hermione. He won't abandon again. He _won't_ make that mistake.

So his hand finds hers, a ghostly pale spider of a hand that he remembered holding everywhere in the halls of Hogwarts once upon a time, those innocent memories and the laughing and yeah, the kissing, and the stolen minuets in the Astronomy Tower after class -

_It's hard to believe that was little over a year ago._

-and her hand, it was warm and quite nice entwined with his during that brief time, if he does say so himself. And she's dying, and he's there, and he's going to make sure that she's not scared or alone when it happens.

Because she's his friend, and she will always be special in his eyes.

Lavender's bluebell-blue eyes suck in his face hungrily, gratefully, like it's the last face she'll ever see, and-

_And that's probably right, _he thinks, _because her parents are gone and Parvati's nowhere to be found and she's all alone and-_

Ron tries for a reassuring smile. He suspects it comes out as more of a grimace.

Lavender flinches.

'Does it hurt?' asks Ron anxiously.

"A little." She attempts a smile. "Not- not too bad."

She's lying. He could always tell when she lied, like how she pretended to forget his birthday and then presented him with a home-baked Gryffindor cake, complete with the roaring lion.

"Remember that time when you made me a Gryffindor birthday cake?" he says abruptly, in that surprising moment that happens to everyone, when you think out loud. She blinks at him, like she knows he's trying to distract her.

"Yeah." She tries for a croaky laugh, eyes glassy. "T-took me ages. I did it the Muggle way."

"Best birthday present ever." He lies quickly. The best birthday present he got was his first broom, but Lavender doesn't need to know.

Lavender laughs again, a wheezing, faint sound that makes Ron cringe. "No way."

"'Course. No one's ever bothered to make me a cake the Muggle way, excluding Mum."

Lavender smiles, and Ron begins to notice the little wheezy sound again, and it's in each breath, each painful breath she takes, that leads her closer to-

He grips her hand tighter. Ron's not Harry, and as much as he would like to pretend, he's scared for her, and what's waiting for her. And after everything, the hallows, what he's been facing, Ron knows that he should know better.

'Ron?' her voice is now a whisper. Barely.

'Hmm?'

"I'm- I'm sorry. You know," her lips struggle to form words, her breathing erratic. "For all the drama."

'Rubbish.' But his voice breaks slightly. 'You're honestly not apologizing? My sixth year was the best, thanks to you.' And for once, Ron actually means it. Because okay, Lavender Brown might have been just to make Hermione jealous at first, but somewhere along the way he found himself loving her like he should've in the first place.

She's silent, and so quiet, that he thinks for a brief moment that she's-

'I'm glad you've got Hermione.' She says eventually, and she has to repeat it twice for him to hear, and even then, it's barely above a whisper of a whisper, and she's gasping with the effort. "You were the- first person that I actually loved. I'm- glad- you're h-happy- really."

There's a silence, and it's longer than Ron can actually bear, because no words can be said to accurately describe what he feels right now.

She was the only one who ever told him that he was, to her, better than Fred and George and Charlie and Bill and Ginny put together.

Ron guesses he never really showed how much she meant to him at that moment when she said those words.

"You'll stay with me?"

"Until the very end."

Lavender Brown tilts her head to the enchanted starry sky with a sigh as her hand becomes heavy, her eyes reflecting the faces of a billion stars and the thin slice of the crescent moon-

-and she doesn't feel Ron squeeze her hand, or the tiny brush of his lips on her ice-cold forehead, fresh with new scars.

And the words, "You were my first love, too,"

they fall on empty ears.

_ And here we are again, always saying goodbye. And true goodbyes are the ones never said or explained._

__** Fin. **

** I hope you liked it, **

** and the words "You'll stay with me?" "Until the very end." belong to JK Rowling, as does everything else, i guess. **

**Review and get a free cybermuffin, courtesy of RuneUnicorn!**

**\(^o^)/**


End file.
